Li went to study in Paris in 1919 and returned to China in 1921. He joined the CCP in the same year and became one of the party’s principal labour organizers. After 1928 he became one of the effective heads of the CCP. On orders from the Communist International (Comintern), he implemented what became known as the “Li Lisan line”; this strategy followed established Marxist-Leninist doctrine in its encouragement of large-scale worker uprisings in urban centres and was different in emphasis from the peasant-oriented rural strategy of the revolutionist Mao Zedong.

In July 1930 Li’s small communist army attacked and took over Changsha, the capital of the central Chinese province of Hunan. The communists suffered heavy losses, however, when the government’s forces recaptured the city a short time later. The major centre of CCP activity then shifted to Mao Zedong’s guerrilla forces. Denounced by the Comintern as responsible for the debacle at Changsha, Li was recalled to Moscow for corrective study.

He returned to China in 1946, and, after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, he was minister of labour. He subsequently held a series of modest posts in the party. Li reportedly committed suicide when he came under attack in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution.